Fresh Meat

by Megan Derr

  "Yeah." Wyatt yanked on his t-shirt and retrieved his knife from where he'd set it on top of Deacon's bureau. "Was kind of expecting it, honestly."

  "How could they know where I am?"

  "They have your flesh, blood, and bone," Wyatt replied. "Not hard to cast a spell to figure out where you're at."

  Deacon flinched. "We should have thought of that."

  "I did," Wyatt said. "After you fell asleep, I worked on the wards around this place. They're cheap, shitty work, but I was able to beef them up rather than start from scratch. But if they still have that shithead Caiman with them, they'll be able to break through. I was hoping to call Jackie in the morning to do some real warding. He's a pro at that, better than anyone I've ever met."

  "Amr can just pay him to do it once this mess is over. Drat it, I left my gun downstairs." Stupid. That was a rookie mistake of the highest order.

  "It's there."

  Deacon followed where Wyatt pointed and saw with relief that his Glock was on the small table by the door. He grabbed it up, checked it over, and strapped on the holster Wyatt had set beside it. "Thank you."

  Wyatt smiled and started to say something, but stopped as Pentacle gave a low, menacing growl. His ears closed up and pressed close to the sides of his head, scales gleaming as he readied his elemental attacks.

  "Damn it." Wyatt turned back to his alchemical bric-a-brac and started shoving items in pockets. "I just felt one of the wards come down. Back of the house."

  "Marvelous." At least he had two arms again. Deacon was in no way ready to try tangling with goblins with one arm. "Pentacle, find and kill."

  Pentacle growled in that menacing way that usually set people scattering before the trouble actually started and prowled sinuously into the hallway, head low, tail flicking sharply, prepared to turn into a deadly lash in a moment.

  Downstairs, everything was dark, even though Deacon knew lights had been left on, because he never left a house in complete darkness. The back of his neck prickled. Deacon silently recited a prayer. Pentacle continued forward, following a scent. Deacon turned to look at Wyatt. "What should we do?"

  "I'm going hunting." Wyatt faded off into the darkness that always seemed eager to welcome him. "Be careful."

  "You too, brat," Deacon replied, but Wyatt was gone.

  He followed Pentacle through the halls—and froze as he heard the familiar soft voices of goblins whispering in their sibilant language. Pentacle, who'd gone completely silent as they explored the downstairs, suddenly lunged forward, lighting up the room with rushing flames. The light exposed three goblins, who all shrieked at the surprise attack.

  Deacon raised his gun and fired, catching one in the throat. He shifted to the next, but only clipped his shoulder as he moved at the last minute. But Pentacle was already moving in, teeth clamping down on the nearest goblin's arm, dragging him down, ripping it from the socket in the process. After that, one swift bite to the goblin's throat and that was two down.

  The remaining one tried to flee but was instead thrown into a wall by the force of Pentacle's tail.

  Then there was none.

  "Good thing I was planning to remodel anyway, huh?"

  Pentacle snorted at that and pressed onward, clearly smelling more of them.

  They turned a corner—and Deacon screamed as searing, blinding light filled the air. He covered his eyes, but it was too late to avoid being blinded.

  Something struck his head from behind, sending him to the ground, his gun sliding away.

  A rough, claw-tipped hand grabbed his hair and yanked him to his knees. "I finally have you. I was starting to think I'd never get to actually kill the stupid bastard who murdered my mother and brother."

  "If you don't want to get murdered, then don't murder," Deacon replied.

  He was backhanded, knocked back to the ground, and a booted foot planted on his chest. "There's plenty of humans to go around, and humans have a lot of nerve whining about other species killing for meat. I couldn't believe it when they said Mordred had taken over Rust, after we'd been operating so smoothly right under his nose. But I didn't think I'd actually see you, even after we delivered that girl's leg to provoke you."

  Deacon stared up at the figure above him, little more than a black blob against a gray background. "Fuck your dead family and fuck you."

  Pentacle growled, but the frustration emanating from him said he'd been trapped too.

  "Where the hell is Caiman?" the goblin holding Deacon down asked. "Nevermind, I'll do this without him. If he doesn't get his shit together—" He cut off, making a familiar, awful sucking sound.

  In the next breath, Pentacle roared, and Deacon could only listen as he wreaked havoc with whatever goblins were around.

  Soft hands cupped Deacon's head, and then magic rushed over him. He blinked rapidly, and then gradually Wyatt's face came into view. "I am really tired of goblins."

  "Almost done," Wyatt said. "You want this one alive?"

  Deacon turned to where he pointed and saw a goblin with a face that was vaguely familiar—reminiscent of a goblin matriarch he'd put a bullet in years ago, after her son had nearly gutted him before being shot by a guard that had retired after that job was done. Goblins were good at driving people to quit. "No."

  Wyatt picked up the knife he'd set aside to help Deacon, moved to kneel beside the goblin, and said, "If I could, I'd cut you into pieces, keep you alive while I did it, until the shock and pain finally did you in. Enjoy your suffering after all the misery you caused Deacon."

  "Screw you, human."

  Wyatt drove the blade into his right eye, practically all the way to the hilt, then yanked it out again.

  Deacon recited some more silent prayers and went to retrieve his gun. "You ever… lost control of that?"

  Cleaning his blade, Wyatt rose and sheathed it again. "No, not yet. I've come close a few times. Changing your mind about me?"

  "No, just trying to better understand. I hate seeing you so torn up over it. I mean, I'm not in a rush to see you become a full-fledged monster, but nobody should spend their life hating themselves either."

  "I don't want to be my grandfather," Wyatt said, barley speaking above a whisper, "but I could be if I'm not careful." He closed his eyes, anguish and shame and a dark, hungry longing on his face. "I always like it best when I can kill them slowly, enjoy their suffering." He opened his eyes again. "I'm sorry."

  Deacon shook his head and drew Wyatt in, holding fast with his right arm. "Don't be sorry. Just come to me if you ever need help, and we'll figure something out. In the meantime, my impression is that it's a last resort for you. I don't like violence, especially of the sort we've been facing lately, but I'm also not going to lose sleep because you made some goblins miserable while killing them. Not after what they've done to hundreds, possibly thousands, of humans. Come on, I think there must still be some skulking around."

  "I got most of them. I just can't find that asshole Caiman and the last couple of stragglers."

  "They can't hide forever. Pentacle, let's find them."

  Pentacle growled happily and headed off into the parts of the house they hadn't yet cleared. Deacon stepped over a dead goblin and followed him.

  "How's the arm?" Wyatt asked.

  "You want to fuss now?" Deacon asked, mouth tipping up as he shot Wyatt a look. "It's been fine. Better than, really. Heck if I know what you need to tweak."

  Wyatt preened at the words, but as Pentacle roared they both snapped back to work.

  Never one to bother with subtlety, Pentacle barreled right through a closet door, growling and snarling, the air around him dropping several degrees as he attacked with ice. He came thrashing out of the small space with his jaws firmly sunk into the shoulder of a goblin.

  "Don't kill him," Deacon said. "As much as I'd love to, Amr will want him for questioning."

  Wyatt had already vanished into the remains of the closet and returned dragging Caiman by his hair. Throwing him on the ground on his back, Wyat
t straddled his chest and pressed his knife to Caiman's throat. "Hello again, asshole."

  "Go to hell, you crazy bitch."

  "Removing a couple of fingers wasn't enough, I see," Wyatt said as though Caiman hadn't spoken. "What should I take this time? A whole hand? Both hands? You did help with the ambush that cost my lover his arm, so maybe I should pay in kind."

  "Whatever. You're a goddamn psychopath," Caiman said, but his voice trembled.

  "How about I carve out your kidney and make you eat it," Wyatt said, and Deacon didn't need to see them to know his eyes were full of those dark, hungry shadows. "What sort of scumbag helps goblins run a human processing operation?"

  "What the hell do I care what species is dying? It's good money—stop stop stop!" Caiman wailed as Wyatt's knife drew a long, thin line of blood across his throat.

  "We need him alive too," Deacon finally said. "Otherwise I'd be glad to start cleaning up while you dealt with him. Though I think—" He stopped at the sound of gunshots. Not just any gunshots, either. That was a Colt Single Action Army.

  "Jackie." Wyatt grabbed a knife off a dead goblin and drove it through Caiman's hand all the way into the floor. "You stay here." Caiman screamed, and Wyatt grinned, dark and fleeting, before he was on his feet and racing away.

  Outside, Jackie and the rest of his team were spread out across the front of the property, along with Heather—and from the sounds of it, more of her team was in the surrounding woods. "It's about time you showed up. I was starting to think we'd have to do all the work ourselves."

  "Yeah, sorry about that. Had a touch of trouble back in the city to handle first," Jackie said, standing over a goblin and putting a bullet between his eyes. "You get the ones what made it inside? I saw they'd broken through the wards."

  "Yeah, got one of them and the alchemist contained for questioning," Deacon said.

  Jackie nodded and put his fingers to his lips to whistle for the others. A few minutes later, knights and dragons assembled.

  Heather surged forward to hug Deacon. "Are you okay? We tried to call, but that stupid alchemist laid down some really nasty wards. It all happened so fast. Amr says they must have—"

  "Yeah, Wyatt told me. I'd rather not hear it again," Deacon said. "What do you think?" He held up his new arm.

  Heather shrieked, then clapped her hands over her mouth. "It's amazing! Who did it? Wyatt? You're incredible!" She reached out to examine it, running her fingers up the arm and then splaying his hand to more closely inspect the fingers. "It's beautiful work."

  Wyatt shrugged, but as ever he seemed to drink up praise like water.

  Deacon motioned to Pentacle. "Take the others, sweep the woods for any stragglers, and bring all the bodies here so we can dispose of them."

  Pentacle loped off, the other dragons falling in around and behind him, vanishing into the woods with eager growls and lashing tails. Heather sent two of her team to collect the prisoners, and Deacon sat down on the stoop. "I hope this is finally over now, good grief."

  "If not, we'll hunt'em down till it is," Jackie said. "Ain't my first rodeo with these sorts of goblins, and I got connections with the good ones that'll help me rustle'em up. Still sorry you was so sorely wounded, though."

  Deacon shrugged. "All things considered, it could have been a lot worse. I've got a fancy new arm now."

  "Ain't all you been getting, I think," Jackie said with a smirk, eyes falling to the marks on Wyatt's neck.

  Deacon grinned. "Yeah, I also got a promotion and this fancy house."

  "Hey!" Wyatt said.

  Laughing, Deacon tugged Wyatt down to sit beside him and leaned in to kiss him, ignoring the ribbing and laughing of those around them. He twined his new fingers with Wyatt's. "I'm glad the Sheriff was slacking when all this started."

  Wyatt smiled shyly and lifted Deacon's artificial hand to kiss the back of it. "Me too."

  FIN

  Author's Note

  It can be tricky incorporating real people into fictional stories, especially when the individual in question is a terrible person who did truly awful things. They can be interesting, and add to the story, but using them thus can also risk glamorizing them, minimizing their crimes.

  Such is the case with H.H. Holmes, incorporated into my Dance with the Devil series as Wyatt's grandfather. He was a very real serial killer, once relatively unknown in modern day but made 'popular' again by The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson.

  His notorious Murder Hotel did exist after a fashion, though in reality it was a mixed-use building with apartments and such; the hotel portion was never actually completed. But it did have rooms with traps, chutes, and more, and a basement with vats of quicklime and a crematorium to dispose of bodies.

  He is confirmed to have killed nine people but confessed to killing nearly thirty (many of which were easily proven false). We will likely never know the actual number. His victims were primarily women and children, though he also killed a few men. They could only convict him of one of the crimes (a child). He was also a con-artist, bigamist, and all around scumbag.

  For the purposes of this story, I have relied heavily on the pulp fantasy versions of Holmes, which greatly exaggerated his life and crimes and suit my paranormal setting. But the real Holmes, while less 'glamorous', was just as evil as my and other fictional accounts have portrayed. He used, abused, and murdered his way through life, and deserved every second of the miserable execution he received.

  May his victims, known and unknown, rest in peace.

  ~Megan

  About the Author

  Megan is a long time resident of queer romance, and keeps herself busy reading, writing, and publishing it. She is often accused of fluff and nonsense. When she's not involved in writing, she likes to cook, harass her wife and cats, or watch movies. She loves to hear from readers, and can be found all over the internet.

  meganderr.com

  patreon.com/meganderr

  pillowfort.io/maderr

  meganderr.blogspot.com

  facebook.com/meganaprilderr

  meganaderr@gmail.com

  @meganaderr